Circular solutions

Origo Eco’s RiceStraws are made from broken rice flour. — AINA AMIRAH/The Star

IT was not too long ago that the movement against single-use plastic straws took the world by storm. In a short few years, city after city, and country after country, took up the call to enact plastic straw bans for the sake of environmental protection and waste reduction. Among them was Malaysia, which in 2018 set a goal towards eliminating single-use plastics by 2030, with policies to rid eateries of plastic straws initiated in 2019.

In response, many F&B outlets turned to non-plastic straw alternatives such as paper straws, which for many, were far from the ideal substitute. In addition to their notorious tendency to wilt during use, paper straws often come with coating material that make them difficult to recycle, rendering them not quite the eco-friendly sipping saviours they were made out to be.

Another substitute in the market is PLA (polylactic acid) straws, which are made of plant-derived starch. While described as biodegradable, the straws also do not decompose as easily as one might assume.

“These bioplastics are organic matter polymerised to emulate the characteristics of plastic, so they need a special facility to be broken down. There are very few such facilities worldwide and in Malaysia, there are none,” explains Seau Yeen Su, co-founder of Origo Eco, a company specialising in 100% compostable products created from agricultural waste.

Paper straws or PLA plastics that end up in a landfill rather than placed in the appropriate industrial composting settings will not properly degrade, resulting in more pollution and, in the case of bioplastics, potentially toxic chemicals released. “Because everyone was rushing to find a solution, many forgot to really consider all the factors in a logical way,” she opines.

Origo Eco’s answer to the plastic straw problem is its RiceStraws, which are made from broken rice flour and will break down into compost soil without the need for additives or specialist facilities.

Closing the loop

“The best thing is, you don’t have to worry about where you leave it, or if an animal winds up eating it. You can feed it to your fish,” shares Su on the company’s natural RiceStraws, which are not only edible, but take just two months to decompose on their own.

Aside from straws, Origo Eco also produces compostable cutlery, chopsticks, plates, bowls and takeaway packaging, made from agricultural waste such as oat hulls and rice husks. “We’ve tried using coconut fibres and oil palm empty fruit bunches, and we’ve had requests to work on waste from palm trees in the desert,” she reveals.

Asked why the company utilises agricultural waste and by-products for its compostable wares, she remarks that it was the most logical decision. “If we’re talking about creating something that’s fully green, you don’t want to invent a new material. We already have a lot of waste everywhere around us, so it makes total sense to take that waste and convert it into something that we can use.”

Origo Eco’s story began around the time the national ban on plastic straws was coming into place. YT Law, whose expertise lies in engineering and machine customisation, first founded the start-up to work towards creating an alternative to plastic drinking straws. Through the R&D process and close collaboration with experts, he found that broken rice could be used to make sustainable straws, and so the first manufacturing facility was set up.

While the product gained significant interest, the pandemic posed some serious setbacks. “Through international expos, we got a lot of purchase orders, but when Covid came, they were all cancelled. We were stuck with a big factory with no orders, and had to downsize.”

Law, Su, and fellow co-founder John Tan, eventually shifted the business from manufacturing straws to building technology that would turn different types of waste into compostable materials.

“I saw the potential of what the business could be,” Su says. “We needed to start doing OEM (original equipment manufacturing), do white labelling, and keep production running. So we pivoted it that way.”

Serving sustainably

In addition to working with a range of international clients, Origo Eco partners local restaurants, cafes and hotels such as Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Lexis Hotel Group. For clients like the sustainability-forward Parkroyal Collection Kuala Lumpur, which has its own urban farm for conscious farm-to-table dining, a food waste digester and a paperless system, Origo Eco’s circularity-driven products seamlessly integrate into existing green practices.

Beyond just supplying compostable utensils, the business is able to provide solutions such as creating sustainability brand campaigns for partners.

“At hotels like Lexis and Shangri-La Rasa Sayang in Penang, we did social media content for them to provide education and started a zero-waste programme within their facilities so that the used straws go into their compost,” she shares. “This way, the consumers can play a role in the activity.”

Such initiatives also allow Origo Eco to extend the brand’s outreach and awareness through their partners. However, convincing businesses, especially F&B establishments, to make the switch to the compostable utensils is still a challenge.

One of the reasons is cost. The RiceStraws, for instance, are priced slightly higher than paper straws. Su also points out that eateries have to contend with the practical issue of space when considering zero-waste initiatives. “Brands need to have the appetite to take on this sort of risk,” she adds. Part of her job, then, is to work closely with businesses to find solutions around these problems.

Greener pastures

At the moment, Origo Eco is in the midst of an ECF campaign to raise funds for four new machines that will produce a sustainable replacement for wooden shipping pallets. Also made using agricultural waste, the compostable pallets would serve to lessen deforestation and landfill waste.

Su shares that each pallet will be equipped with blockchain traceability.

“It’s going to be laser printed on the pallet, so you can scan it and through the app, track where it goes, and more importantly, see information about its end-of-life. Companies can know how many kilos of compost soil it has converted into, and calculate how much carbon credit that earns,” she says.

The team also plans to introduce a micro factory model, enabling Origo Eco’s patented technology to be set up in countries abroad. Compostable items would be produced locally using the region’s agricultural waste.

“This would mean a reduced carbon footprint, compared to shipping our products to these countries. On top of that, we can help uplift the community and upcycle the waste there,” she says.

While it is clear the company is only at the start of its journey, Su reflects that Origo Eco’s progress so far has been a point of pride. “The fact that we went from a product-based business to now being able to produce a number of materials for different industries is a proud accomplishment.”

The goal, she adds, is to continue finding more ways to replace the products that we need, with ones that are earth friendly in their sourcing and production. Recognising that people are by default wary about change, Origo Eco is ready to rise to the challenge by changing mindsets and bringing people on board through innovative, high-quality products.

“We need more people to join us to take this on because it would be impossible to do it ourselves.” “If we’re talking about creating something that’s fully green, you don’t want to invent a new material. We already have a lot of waste everywhere around us, so it makes total sense to take that waste and convert it into something that we can use.”

This article first appeared in Star Biz7 weekly edition.